State is flirting with disaster

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Alack of working metal detectors at some state prisons and dangerously low staffing permits drugs and weapons to flow into our correctional facilities.

Jon Ozmint, director of the Department of Corrections, says a recent search at Evans Correctional Institution — a maximum security prison without a working metal detector — turned up large amounts of contraband including more than 100 cell phones. Evans' walk-through metal detector hasn't worked in years. That's now a common condition in our prisons. Equipment deteriorates, then fails, and no new funding is provided to replace it.

State lawmakers bear direct responsibility for Corrections' substandard equipment and inadequate manpower. Since the 2000-2001 budget cycle, the department's budget has been slashed by more than $50 million. South Carolina now spends about $12,000 annually per inmate — among the lowest in the nation. The cuts have cost the system more than 500 guards.

As a result, our prison system has significant safety issues. At the top of the list is the 54 walk-through metal detectors Corrections lacks. It's virtually unheard of for a modern prison to be without a metal detector.

Gov. Mark Sanford has proposed spending $22 million in one-time money on Corrections, the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Juvenile Justice to remedy a backlog of equipment upgrades. He has also identified $32 million in recurring funds for those same agencies for new personnel. Corrections' portion of that money would mean 124 new guards.

Lawmakers have a choice: either get behind the governor's plan or offer an alternative one that provides even more funding to our state's public safety agencies.

While the new money Sanford proposes is welcome, even more is needed. Corrections, for example, needs to increase pay for prison guards. For this dangerous work the DOC can only offer what Ozmint aptly describes as "a poverty wage." Entry level pay has stagnated at about $20,000. Slowly — but surely — the state is losing its best employees to federal prisons and county jails that consistently pay higher wages.

This is setting Corrections up for long-term failure. Lawmakers need to consider the daunting challenge faced by the 3,700 guards who — short-handedly — keep order in our prisons. They work with shoddy equipment and are paid poorly in an increasingly dangerous work environment. In prisons all across the state, there are units that used to be supervised by three or four guards per shift that in some cases are now run by a single officer. Lawmakers need to imagine how lonely that is. Better yet, they must simply acknowledge how dangerous that is.

Taxpayers and employees within the DOC are both shortchanged by conditions that undermine rehabilitation. The public still expects prisons to rehabilitate. But it is not a priority for lawmakers — not when they allow education programs to be slashed and an already inadequate substance abuse program to face an uncertain fate because federal funding is about to run out.

But Corrections is struggling to meet its primary responsibility, which is safety. The governor has at least offered a proposal to remedy some of prisons' systemic failings. It's time for the Legislature to also take our growing prison problem seriously and grant Corrections the funding it needs.